Britain Flashcards
(36 cards)
Beveridge Report
The 1942 report on Social Insurance and Allied Services, known commonly as the Beveridge Report was an influential document in the founding of the welfare state in the United Kingdom, published in December 1942. It was chaired by William Beveridge, an economist, who identified five “Giant Evils” in society: squalor, ignorance, want, idleness, and disease, and went on to propose widespread reform to the system of social welfare to address these. The Report came in the midst of war, and promised a reward for the sacrifices undertaken by everyone. Highly popular with the public, the report formed the basis for the post-war reforms known as the Welfare State, which include the expansion of National Insurance and the creation of the National Health Service.
Black Rod
The Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, generally shortened to Black Rod, is an official in the parliaments of several Commonwealth countries. The position originates in the House of Lords of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
In the United Kingdom, the Black Rod is responsible for maintaining the buildings, services, and security of the Palace of Westminster.
British National Party
The British National Party (BNP) is a far-right political party in the United Kingdom. The party was formed by John Tyndall in 1982 from the merging of several political parties, and from 1999 to 2014 was led by Nick Griffin. It advocates “voluntary resettlement whereby immigrants and their descendants are afforded the opportunity to return to their lands of ethnic origin.” In July 2014, Griffin stepped down as chairman and was replaced with an acting chairman, Adam Walker, a BNP activist from Spennymoor, England, and a former teacher who was banned from the profession for life.
As well as anti-immigration policies, the party advocates the reintroduction of capital punishment and opposes same-sex marriage, multiculturalism and what it perceives as the Islamification of the UK.
CBI
The Confederation of British Industry is a UK business organisation, which in total speaks for 190,000 businesses, made up of around 1500 direct and 188500 indirect members. There are 140 trade associations within the confederation who, alongside those direct members of the CBI, employ 7 million people, about one third of the UK private sector-employed workforce. The National Farmers Union with its 55,000 members is the largest component of the 188,500 indirect members the CBI claims to speak for.
Chancellor of the Exchequer
The Chancellor of the Exchequer is the title held by the British Cabinet minister who is responsible for all economic and financial matters, equivalent to the role of Minister of Finance or Secretary of the Treasury in other nations. Often simply called the Chancellor, the office-holder controls HM Treasury. The position is considered one of the four Great Offices of State, and in recent times has come to be the most powerful office in British politics after the Prime Minister. It is the only office of the four Great Offices not to have been occupied by a woman
Democratic Unionists
The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) is the larger of the two main unionist political parties in Northern Ireland. Founded by Ian Paisley and now led by Peter Robinson, it is the largest party in the Northern Ireland Assembly and the fourth-largest party in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom.
David Cameron
British politician who has served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom since 2010 and as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Witney since 2001.[1] He has been Leader of the Conservative Party since 2005
Foreign Direct Investment
Foreign direct investment are the net inflows of investment to acquire a lasting management interest (10 percent or more of voting stock) in an enterprise operating in an economy other than that of the investor.
Hegemonic Power
Dominance of one race over another. India, South Africa, etc.
House of Commons, House of Lords
The House of Commons is also responsible for granting money to the government through approving Bills that raise taxes. Generally, the decisions made in one House have to be approved by the other.
In this way the two-chamber system acts as a check and balance for both Houses.
Hung Parliament
In a parliamentary system of government, a hung parliament occurs when no single political party (or bloc of allied parties) has an absolute majority of seats in the parliament (legislature). It is also less commonly known as a balanced parliament or a legislature under no overall control.
IRA
was an Irish republican revolutionary military organisation. It was descended from the Irish Volunteers, an organisation established on 25 November 1913 that staged the Easter Rising in April 1916.[2] In 1919, the Irish Republic that had been proclaimed during the Easter Rising was formally established by an elected assembly (Dáil Éireann), and the Irish Volunteers were recognised by Dáil Éireann as its legitimate army. Thereafter, the IRA waged a guerrilla campaign against British rule in Ireland in the 1919–21 Irish War of Independence.
John Major
is a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1997. He previously held the posts of Chancellor of the Exchequer and Foreign Secretary in the Thatcher Government and was the Member of Parliament for Huntingdon from 1979 to 2001. Major was Margaret Thatcher’s preferred choice as her successor.
Labour Party
The Labour Party is a centre-left political party in the United Kingdom. It grew out of the trade union movement and socialist political parties of the nineteenth century and has been described as a broad church; the party contains a diversity of ideological trends from strongly socialist, to more moderately social democratic. Ed Miliband.
Nationalist Parties: Sinn Fein, etc.
Northern Ireland? Scotland, Wales
New Labour
refers to a period in the history of the British Labour Party, specifically the period spanning the years 1994 to 2010 which saw the party led by Tony Blair and subsequently by Gordon Brown in its final three years. The name dates from a conference slogan first used by the party in 1994 which was later seen in a draft manifesto published in 1996, called New Labour, New Life For Britain. It was presented as the brand of a newly reformed party that had altered Clause IV and endorsed market economics. The branding was extensively used while the party was in government, between 1997 and 2010. New Labour won landslide election victories in 1997 and 2001, and won again in 2005 still yet by a very healthy margin albeit not a landslide. In 2007, Blair resigned as the party’s leader and was succeeded by Gordon Brown. Labour did not win the 2010 general election, which resulted in a hung parliament and led to the creation of a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government; Gordon Brown resigned as Prime Minister, and as Labour leader shortly thereafter. He was succeeded by Ed Miliband after that year’s leadership election
Nick Clegg
is a British politician who since 2010 has been Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Lord President of the Council (with special responsibility for political and constitutional reform), as part of the coalition government[6] headed by Prime Minister David Cameron. Clegg has been the leader of the Liberal Democrats since 2007, and a member of parliament (MP) representing Sheffield Hallam since 2005.
Single-member-district
A single-member district or single-member constituency is an electoral district that returns one officeholder to a body with multiple members such as a legislature. This is also sometimes called single-winner voting.
Three line whip
In the UK a three-line whip is an instruction given to Members of Parliament by the leaders of their party telling them they must vote in the way that the party wants them to on a particular subject.
Tony Blair
is a British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007.
Trade Union Congress
The Trades Union Congress (TUC) is a national trade union centre, a federation of trade unions in England and Wales, representing the majority of trade unions. There are fifty-four affiliated unions with a total of about 6.2 million members, around half of whom are represented by Unite or UNISON.
Ulster Unionist Party
sometimes referred to as the Official Unionist Party (OUP) or, in a historic sense, simply the Unionist Party – is the older of the two main unionist political parties in Northern Ireland.[3] Before the split in unionism in the late 1960s, when the former Protestant Unionist Party began to attract hardline Ulster loyalist support away from the UUP, it governed Northern Ireland between 1921 and 1972 as the sole major unionist party. It continued to be supported by most unionist voters throughout the conflict known as the Troubles.
Westminster Model
The Westminster system is a democratic parliamentary system of government modelled after the politics of the United Kingdom. This term comes from the Palace of Westminster, the seat of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
Whitehall
where palace of whitehall used to be and now seats of government.
